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Vaccines and Autism take 2

I was privileged to be able to attend a workshop at Cold Spring Harbor labs on Autism last month and I thought I would share some new pieces of information I learned relevant to the autism/vaccine debate.

First, I should say that in all areas of science that I have encountered you will find evidence on both sides, so if you want to show that Autism is caused by vaccines you will cite one side of the literature, but if you want to show that it isn't you will find equal amounts of data on the other side. That being said, one needs to appreciate the person that is doing the study and the methodology. So, just because there is data out there to support both sides doesn't mean that they are equal in quality.

Prior to this meeting, when asked (and I do get asked very frequently) what I think about the autism/vaccine debate, I would always say "there is no evidence that vaccines cause autism, but that for some children, it may be that vaccines either make their disorder worse or initiate a process that they were already at risk for."

But now I have a slightly different perspective. At this meeting Dr. Eric Fombonne spoke about the numerous (and I mean numerous) epidemiological studies that have been done that show that children who have vaccines and those that don't, have the same risk of developing ASD.

Then you say, well what about the mercury preservative, isn't that bad? Well, a couple responses to this, 1. The mercury preservative that has been suggested (Thimerosal) is ethyl mercury, quite different from methyl mercury that is responsible for mercury poisoning. If you say well what's the difference, imagine the difference between ethyl alcohol (that is in alcoholic beverages) and methyl alcohol (that is in antifreeze). Methyl alcohol is toxic and causes blindness in small doses and death in large doses. Thus, the type of mercury in Thimerosal cannot be compared to the effects of methyl mercury. 2. Thimerosal was removed from almost all childhood vaccines in the late 90's and early 2000's, but the number of ASD is certainly not going down.

Then you say, well what about the MMR vaccine and it's relation to autism. And you might even site Andrew Wakefield. If you believe any of that data (which I do not) I urge you to read "Autism's False Profits" by Paul Offit. As it relates to the MMR, I have a few points, 1. don't confuse this with the Thimerosal argument as MMR has never contained Thimerosal, because the MMR is a live virus, so it never had the need for a mercury preservative, in fact the addition of Thimerosal would kill the vaccine and make it useless. The argument (as far as I understand it) for the MMR causing autism goes something like this, that the measles virus is taken up by the gut and somehow gets into the blood and then into the brain. There is no evidence that this happens or theoretical mechanism that could lead to this happening.

So why do people think that vaccines cause autism? This is based on how our brains work. We are always looking for causal relationships. So, if you eat something and then get sick you will assume that it was the food that made you sick. Which may be true, but may just be a coincidence. There are in fact many coincidences that happen all the time and it doesn't mean that one thing caused the other. Children get most of their vaccines around the time that the symptoms of autism are expected to emerge. This is a temporal correlation and cannot be assumed to be causal. Also, because people who are paid big money (and I mean hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars) say so. Or they are swayed by these people's statements to believe in data that is of extremely poor quality. And now we have come full circle. Though it is true that you will find support for both sides of the vaccine debate, you need to look at the credentials of the people on both sides and realize that fame and number of times these people have been on TV does not make them experts in the field.

A couple extra points that I didn't know previous regarding vaccines that I thought I would pass along...

1. I said in my earlier post that you can ask your pediatrician to space out the vaccines so the child's immune system doesn't have to deal with all of them at once. I was actually corrected by a immunologist who said that actually the immune system can better develop resistance when the shots are all given together. So, actually you are not helping your child by spreading them out.2. Though the number of shots have increased over the years people born and vaccinated in the 1970's and earlier actually were getting greater amounts of vaccines because they were not as purified as they are now. So our immune system was actually more taxed than the children now.3. The one child that won the case in court that is often cited. I previously noted that the judge determined that the vaccine aggravated a metabolic disorder that then lead to the ASD, but interestingly, if you talk to doctors who specialize in metabolic disorders none of them recommend that the children not be vaccinated, so even for these children, it seems that the benefits of the vaccine outweigh any potential risk.4. A website was also brought to my attention, which I do not support, but thought was interesting called jennymccarthybodycount.com where it lists the number of vaccine preventable deaths and illnesses in the U.S.

It is everyone's responsibility to be educated, we just need to make sure that our education is coming from reliable and knowledgeable sources.

I do not have children, but when I do, I want to delay a lot of the vaccinations and opt out of some (i.e. chicken pox). I also will never take, or have my children take, the flu vaccination (and the swine flu is ridiculous!). A lot of these vaccinations are not necessary to begin with. So many of my friends' kids, and my niece and nephew have autism.

I am starting to think that maybe there could be other contributing causes besides the vaccinations to autism (www.mercola.com -he speaks about maybe there being a link with all of the wireless radiation in our environment), but I still feel like there is a huge link with vaccinations and autism, and also that the public should take the care and education of the health of their families upon themselves. Do not blindly trust anyone (doctors, media, etc.) to make your health decisions for you. You need to investigate and figure out what the best course of action is for your family. With so much medical and drug company fraternizing, (not to mention that the media is mostly sponsored/owned by either drug companies or major stock holders of drug companies) you shouldn't blindly trust your doctor. Also, doctors are increasingly becoming more naive and ignorant about how the body works. They go by their medical education which is mostly teaching them which drugs to prescribe. They also go by a lot of medical studies which are sponsored by the drug companies.

Even if these vaccinations do not contain thimerasol, Can we talk about the lead and arsenic found in them?

I'm no expert on this subject, so please do not take my advice without doing some research on your own. Just please do not naively agree with any "professional". You are just as capable and responsible in the care of your health as they are.

You say you still feel like there is a huge link with vaccinations and autism, but why? What data supports this link other than the temporal correlation?

Though I agree that you should not blindly trust anyone, when you do investigate for yourself, please note what sources you trust as knowledgeable. I do wonder where your cynicism comes from when it comes to the medical community. In my experience working in both academia and a hospital setting I would strongly disagree with your position on "fraternization". There are certainly trials that are sponsored by the drug companies, but that does not mean that the drug company dictates the findings of the study. And your perspective on doctors I would tend to disagree with as well. Of course there are always Doctors who would rather prescribe a medication than deal with the underlying cause of a problem, but that is often the best clinical practice. Most patients don't care what caused a problem as long as it is fixed. And often times by the time the doctor definitively figures out what is the root cause of the problem it could take weeks or months and in the mean time the patient is suffering.

We each have our own opinions, but these should not be confused with fact.

Dr Oberman you stress the importance of the source of knowledge in your comments. One of those sources involved in this debate beyond the celebrities who make such easy targets, is Dr. Bernadine Healy. Dr. Healy has twice stated publicly that the epidemiological studies such as those referenced by Dr. Fombonne are not specific enough to address issues concerning vulnerable population subsets, children who might have a particular biological vulnerability to thimerosal or other vaccine ingredients. She has stated that the science is not closed on these issues. Dr. Healy also pointed out that flu vaccines, have continued to contain thimerosal, including vaccines given to pregnant women and that the mercury based thimerosal crosses the placenta.

For the above reasons Dr Healy has recommended that further lab experiments need to be done and that comparison or observational studies of existing unvaccinated and vaccinated studies should be done. Both she and Dr Julie Gerberding have both stated that should comparison studies could and should be done. Their comments have been joined by Dr. Jon Poling,a neurologist and professor, who also advocated on behalf of his daughter successfully in the vaccine court. In that case the government settled on the basis that there was evidence that "autism like symptoms' (autism disorders are defined by symptoms not by biological markers) resulted from vaccine aggravation of a pre-existing mitochondrial disorder. The government also settled on the Banks case.

Are Dr Healy, Dr Gerberding and Dr Poling trustworthy sources of knowledge in your opinion? For the record I do not believe that it has been proven that vaccines cause autism but I am very doubtful that it can be said that the epidemiological studies, many of which are conflict tainted, have decided the issues conclusively.

I highly reccommend that you read "Autism's False Profits" by Paul Offitt. Even if you believe that there is still a question of whether vaccines have a role in autism, I think it is important to understand both sides. I am not aware of the research by Dr. Gerberding or Dr. Poling, but will certainly look into their work. I am aware of Dr. Healy's work, but disagree with her on her take of epidemiololgical studies. I believe it is exactly the correct type of study to look at this issue and is quite sensitive to any evidence for increased risk. Part of the confusion, in my opinion stems from the basis of the scientific method. In science you set up a study to test what is called the null hypothesis. Which is always that there is no difference between groups. Then you can either reject or fail to reject the null hypothesis. It is somewhat analagous to the court of law where someone can be guilty or not guilty, but never found "innocent". Similarly, science can only say that there is no evidence that vaccines cause autism, they can never say vaccines do not cause autism (just like you could never say that the person is "innocent" only that there was not enough evidence to find them guilty).

With regard to the flu vaccine, you are correct the standard flu vaccine does contain thimerosal, but you can get thimerosal free vaccines (according to my best friend who happens to be a PR representative who is in charge of the flu vaccine account). In terms of the concern about pregnant women, I will refer you to this website http://www.cdc.gov/FLU/ABOUT/QA/thimerosal.htm
which states "A study of influenza vaccination examining over 2,000 pregnant women demonstrated no adverse fetal effects associated with influenza vaccine. Case reports and limited studies indicate that pregnancy can increase the risk for serious medical complications of influenza. One study found that out of every 10,000 women in their third trimester of pregnancy during an average flu season, 25 will be hospitalized for flu related complications."

Dr Oberman thank you I appreciate your explanation of why you disagree with Dr. Healy but you didn't really answer the question I asked which was whether Dr. Healy, Dr. Gerberding and Dr Jon Poling are trustworthy sources of knowledge.

Dr. Healy, as I am sure you know, is a Harvard and Johns Hopkins educated physician and cardiologist and a former head of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).She has been a professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins, professor and dean of the College of Medicine and Public Health at the Ohio State University, and served as president of the American Red Cross.

Dr. Gerberding, M.D., M.P.H.is an American infectious disease expert and the former director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and administrator of the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR). Before becoming CDC Director and ATSDR Administrator, Gerberding was Acting Deputy Director of the National Center for Infectious Diseases (NCID), where she played a major role in leading CDC's response to the anthrax bioterrorism events of 2001. In an interview with Kent Heckenlively she stated in the context of vaccine autism issues that comparison studies of existing vaccinated and unvaccinated populations could and should be done.

Though these people are certainly well trained in their field none appear to be experts in autism. So, Dr. Healy is a cardiologist (not a neurologist, psychologist, or immunologist). Dr. Gerberding as you mentioned is an infectious disease expert, and autism is not an infectious disease. Finally, Dr. Poling, though I am sure is an expert in his own child and perhaps may be an expert in MRI and CT interpretation and Apheresis, I am not sure how any of these things is relevant to autism and vaccines. Though I am trained in EEG, autism, magnetic stimulation, etc. I would not call myself an expert in Alzheimer's for example. So, it is not their general qualifications, as I am sure they are all extremely intelligent individuals, but rather their particular expertise in autism and vaccines. Also, I would not take Dr. Offitt's opinions as fact, as much as anyone should take my opinions as fact. But it is a good resource for the scientific studies. It is not Dr. Offitt that I am referring to as a good source, but rather Dr. Fombonne and other researchers who have done the studies that specifically look into it.

Thank you for your interest. I do not mind an ongoing discussion in the least, that is the point of this blog, to inspire conversation.

I think it's interesting that you say you don't support the Jenny McCarthy body count web site, but you think it's interesting. This is basically the same as supporting it - you are directing your readers to it. Dr. Offit, who you mention repeatedly, tries to influence parents to vaccinate as much as Jenny influences parents not to. Would you also find a web site listing deaths from vaccine injuires as a Paul Offit body count? I doubt it.

The CDC itself says that "last year in the United States, the number of reported adverse events associated with vaccination was greater than the number of reported cases of vaccine-preventable disease." If less people are vaccinating, shouldn't the opposite be true?

I appreciate your piece, but you advise others in your comments that while Bernadine Healy and others are intelligent, they are not experts in the field. Yet, we are to take comfort in the writings of a vaccine patenter and your best friend in big pharma marketing? Meanwhile, Paul Offit is sitting in his new six million dollar beach house while millions of families are struggling to pay for their vaccine-injured kids' therapy and supplements. Forgive me if I don't think the verdict is in...

I do not think it should be called Jenny McCarthy bodycount, nor do I think it is her fault, but I thought it was interesting to know how many children have died of vaccine preventable illnesses. If you have a number of children who have died or were injured by vaccines (with evidence to show that it was the vaccines that caused the problem), I would be interested in this number as well. I understand that vaccines aren't perfect, and I am sure some children have been harmed, but I would imagine far fewer than who would have died or be permanently disabled from these illnesses that they are preventing.

Regarding Dr. Offit, I personally do not know him at all. I was just read his book and thought it had a lot of interesting perspective. I know nothing about him personally, nor have any opinions about him as a person, just appreciated his perspective in his book.

Sorry to go off-topic, but I was wondering what is known/speculated about Aspergers/autism and sleep?
Are there any differences between an autistic brain and a normal brain when it comes to being awake and being asleep?
Does sleep make any difference to brain plasticity?

There is a good amount of research on sleep and plasticity. Specifically, it seems that neural connections that are established over the course of the day are strenthened and those that aren't used are weakened and eventually pruned during sleep. I have heard anecdotally that people with ASD get less sleep, and perhaps that could also explain the increased, but not stable connectivity that we are seeing in the ASD brain. A very interesting topic and one that is not exactly my area of expertise, but definitely relevant to the discussion of ASD and plasticity. Thank you for the comment.

The NUMEROUS vaccines are biologically active, and yet they are unnatural and foreign to the body. So when the body THEN reacts as if it is infected with disease (via immune responses/antibodies), is it not diseased/ill/damaged/infected to some extent? All of these NUMEROUS and altered/unnatural immune responses/vaccinations will eventually compromise our immune function. The answer is common sense and simple, and there is no way around this.

Also consider: The vaccines (viruses and bacteria) are altered and unnatural; AND the disease/infection process is fundamentally different as well (via injection). This is all very significant, in keeping with everything else that can be/has been said.Understanding that autism meets the definition of a disintegration and contraction of being and experience is very helpful in understanding, preventing, and treating this disorder. The increasing numbers of vaccines and the rising rates of disorders involving mind/emotion/body are of very serious concern.

The NUMEROUS vaccines are biologically active, and yet they are unnatural and foreign to the body. So when the body THEN reacts as if it is infected with disease (via immune responses/antibodies), is it not diseased/ill/damaged/infected to some extent? Also consider, all of these NUMEROUS and altered/unnatural immune responses/vaccinations will eventually compromise our immune function. Life is fragile, as it is delicately and precisely regulated and balanced. Artificially reconfigured/replaced sensory experience (including pollution, toxins, processed foods, television, vaccines, etc., etc.) is making us increasingly unconscious and reactive in various and unpredictable ways. We are becoming more inanimate.

The reconfiguration, replacement, and loss of sensory experience (and feeling) includes toxins, vaccines, lack of exercise, processed foods, television, etc., etc. This is making us increasingly unconscious and reactive in various and unpredictable ways; and this involves sensory processing disorders as well.

Autism is a disintegration, contraction, and detachment of being and experience (including consciousness). This also meets the definition/description of anxiety, depression, cancer, obesity, sleep disorders, and the experience of television. The NUMEROUS vaccines are biologically active, and yet they are unnatural and foreign to the body. So when the body THEN reacts as if it is infected with disease (via immune responses/antibodies), is it not diseased/ill/damaged/infected to some extent? Moreover, all of these NUMEROUS and altered/unnatural immune responses/vaccinations will eventually compromise our immune function, and worse. We are becoming more inanimate. The natural and integrated extensiveness of being and experience go hand in hand, as the disintegration, contraction, and detachment of being and experience go hand in hand as well. Author Frank Martin DiMeglio

The great revelation of art (including music) is that the world requires and involves man; although science has been slow to recognize this; for the danger of technology is that it is creating a world of experience that is toxic and foreign to the self where man is neither truly involved nor required. By pervasively and fundamentally changing our various sensory experiences (including the range of feeling thereof), the self’s ability to represent and form a consistent, comprehensive, and relatively extensive approximation of sense is being compromised; whereby sense and feeling [increasingly] cannot be properly experienced, utilized, and understood as the expression and extension of the self’s desire; and it is not only our loss of language that we face. (Consciousness and language involve the ability to represent, form, and experience comprehensive approximations of experience in general; and this includes art and music as well.) The reconfiguration (i.e., disintegration, alteration, reduction, and/or replacement) of sensory experience in general (including range of feeling) is progressively involving a disintegration and contraction of being and experience (including thought). This is evident in (and includes) sleep disorders, depression, anxiety, autism, obesity, and the experience of television. (Clearly, obesity involves a disintegration, contraction, and detachment of being/experience; and it is associated with increased risk of death from all causes.)

Moreover, there is no true difference between what is foreign/unnatural and toxic. Artificially reconfigured sensory experience (including pollution, processed foods, television, etc.) makes the self increasingly unconscious (and reactive) in unpredictable ways. The disintegration, alteration, reduction, and replacement of sensory experience and feeling involve the loss of the instincts; as the self is disconnected and detached from what is natural and truly sustaining. The disintegration and contraction (and this includes detachment) of being and experience go hand in hand. Being and experience are becoming excessively (and increasingly) unconscious and less animate. Finally, in reference to sleep disorders, it is important that dreams involve a fundamental integration and spreading of being and experience at the mid-range of feeling between thought and sense, in conjunction with the natural extensiveness and interactivity of being and experience.

In both depression and anxiety, the emotional disintegration and contraction of being and experience involves increased feeling at the emotional center of the self. In anxiety, this is consistent with excessive concern, the reduction in the desirability of experience, emotional imbalance (or variability), bodily aches and pains (i.e., emotional disintegration), the mind “going blank”, panic attacks (involving a sort of generalized paralysis and loss of experience), etc. Comparatively (and similarly), in depression, there is a contraction, detachment, disintegration, and loss of being and experience that also involves a loss of emotion. The loss of desire in both depression and anxiety involves a significant reduction in the comprehensiveness and consistency of both intention and concern as they relate to experience in general; and this has the dream-like effect of reducing thought, emotion, and memory, including the desirability and totality of experience as well.

Hi Lindsay. You are very welcome. You said previously:
"I have heard anecdotally that people with ASD get less sleep, and perhaps that could also explain the increased, but not stable connectivity that we are seeing in the ASD brain."
Sleep (and dreams) add to the integrated extensiveness of being, experience, and thought, thereby improving attention and memory.
Indeed, dreams make thought more like sensory experience in general, thereby improving both memory and understanding.

The increased connectivity is understood as reducing what would otherwise be the balanced/stable and integrated extensiveness of their thought and experience.

Hello again Lindsay. Understanding that autism is a disintegration, contraction, and detachment of being and experience (including consciousness) is very important in the prevention and treatment of this disorder. The Amish, for the most part, do not get autism; and they do not [generally] vaccinate or watch TV either.

The overeating during television occurs in keeping with the fact that TV is an extended, interactive, and unnatural form of dream vision AS waking vision. Bodily feeling/sensation is therefore reduced during TV (as is the case during dream experience), so the feeling of fullness is reduced/lacking. Dr. Joyce Starr agrees with this as well. (Television is an unnatural creation of generalized thought; accordingly, TV may be held to be a generalized hallucination.) The experience of sound and vision in/as TV is even more like thought than in the case of the vision and sound in the dream.

Emotion is manifest as sensory experience and feeling.

TV involves emotional detachment, disintegration, contraction, and loss; and this certainly relates to (or involves) depression and anxiety as well. Importantly, TV also reduces memory and thought; and this is also consistent with/similar to dream experience. Hence, the overeating while watching television relates to the reduction in thought and memory as well. Frank Martin DiMeglio (author/expert)

Television is only possible because this disintegration, reconfiguration, contraction (i.e., compression), and extension of visual sensory experience occurs during dreams. Accordingly, both television viewing and dreams may be said to include (or involve) reduced ability to think, anxiety, and increased distractibility. Television thus compels attention, as it is compelled in the dream; but it is an unnatural and hallucinatory experience. Hence, television is addictive. Similar to the visual experience while dreaming, television compels attention to the relative exclusion of other experience. Television reduces consciousness and results in a flattening of the visual experience as a result of combining waking visual experience with relatively unconscious visual experience. Television involves the experience of what is less animate, for it involves a significant reduction in (or loss of) visual experience. This disintegration of the visual experience (as in the dream) also results in an emotional disintegration (i.e., anxiety). That television may be so described (and even possible) is hard to imagine; but this is consistent with the fact that it took so very many different minds (and thoughts) of genius in order to make the relatively unconscious visual experience of the dream conscious. Since the thinking that is involved in making the experience of television possible is so enormously difficult, it becomes difficult to think while partaking of that experience. Television may be seen as an accelerated form or experience of art, thereby making someone less wary (or less anxious) initially, but less creative and more anxious (as time passes) as the advance of the self becomes unsustainable. The experience (or effects) of television demonstrates the interactive nature of being and experience; for, in the dream, there is also a reduction in the totality (or extensiveness) of experience.

Thought involves a relative reduction in the range and extensiveness of feeling. In keeping with this, dreams make thought more like sensory experience in general. Accordingly, both thought and also the range and extensiveness of feeling are proportionately reduced in the dream. (This reduction in the range and extensiveness of feeling during dreams is consistent with the fact that the experience of smell very rarely occurs therein.) Since there is a proportionate reduction of both thought and feeling during dreams, the experience of the body is generally (or significantly) lacking; for thought is fundamentally rendered more like sensory experience in general. Thoughts and emotions are differentiated feelings. By involving the mid-range of feeling between thought and sense, dreams make thought more like sensory experience in general. The reduction in the range and extensiveness of feeling during dreams is why there is less memory and thought therein.

Dream vision is generally closer (or flattened), thereby resulting in a loss/reduction of peripheral vision as well. Comparatively, television further flattens vision; and it also involves a reduction in peripheral vision.

In the dream, vision and thought are semi-detached from touch (and feeling). One may or may not be able to touch what is seen in the dream. In the visual experience that is television, the visual images may not be (and are not) touched at all. In the case of waking vision, one can [generally] touch what one sees.

It is not only in the dream that the vision of each individual person is necessarily different. That is obvious. Importantly, the experience of television is uniquely that of the individual.

Television may be understood as a creation of generalized thought. The ability of thought to describe or reconfigure sense is ultimately dependent upon the extent to which thought is similar to sense.

Television makes thought even more like vision than in the dream, thereby reducing thought and vision. Thoughts are relatively shifting and variable. Likewise, dream vision is relatively shifting and variable. In the case (and form) of television, the visual images become more shifting and variable than that of the dream; and this is in keeping with attention being compelled and sustained in conjunction with these images being even more like (or consistent with) thought. People tend to believe what they see (and hear) during television.

Ordinary (and natural) vision is removed and replaced in the case of television. Unlike art, which can be the interactive creation of any one person, television is impossible for any one person to possibly create or otherwise experience.

Television is an hallucination. Hallucinations are already known to be connected with/associated with/”caused by” all sorts of very serious mental/physical/emotional conditions or disorders. It is undeniable that this is a very important and serious matter.

Hi Lindsay. Here is yet more information as to why the effects of the vaccines (or the reactions by the body thereto) would not necessarily be predictable or uniform.

Visually, the universal experience of the body is one of visual transparency (i.e., invisibility). Accordingly, when our bodies are visually distinguishable (or visible), then each of our visible experiences of the body (and of everything else for that matter) must necessarily be different (or unique); and individuals are then visually distinguishable as well. Since all of our bodies are visually transparent (or invisible), each of our bodies (considered individually) must necessarily be different when visible. Since the experience of the body is both visible and invisible, the visible experience of the body is necessarily changing (or inconstant), unique, and finite. The disintegration of the visual experience when an object is close to the eyes is demonstrative of the relationship between visibility and invisibility. The visible appearance of the body (including that of experience in general) is relatively unique, finite, and limited. (This conclusion is also in keeping with the fact that thought and vision are necessarily different.) The thoughtful understanding of the visible is properly understood as variable and finite in relation to the totality of experience, including that of the body.

Thoughts and emotions are differentiated feelings. Our thoughts, emotions, and feelings are largely (or often) indiscernible to others in keeping with the fact that the body is transparent (or invisible inside the eye).

The following translates into a toxic/diseased/damaged body, consistent with a disintegration, contraction, and detachment of being and experience (including consciousness and emotion):

The NUMEROUS vaccines are biologically active, and yet they are unnatural and foreign to the body. So when the body THEN reacts as if it is infected with disease (via immune responses/antibodies), is it not diseased/ill/damaged/infected to some extent? All of these NUMEROUS and altered/unnatural immune responses/vaccinations will eventually compromise our immune function. The answer is common sense and simple, and there is no way around this.

The fact that autism is a disintegration, contraction, and detachment of being, experience, and consciousness is consistent with toxicity/damage/disorder.

The NUMEROUS vaccines are biologically active, and yet they are unnatural and foreign to the body. So when the body THEN reacts as if it is infected with disease (via antibodies/immune responses), is it not diseased/ill/damaged/infected to some extent? All of these NUMEROUS and altered/unnatural immune responses/vaccinations will eventually compromise our immune function.

Autism also involves a disintegration, contraction, and detachment of memory, feeling, thought, and emotion. Importantly, autism may be usefully understood as involving BIOLOGICAL toxicity/disorder/damage that relates to, involves, or pertains to thought, feeling, and emotion.

The seriousness of my contention/the fact that autism is a disintegration, contraction, and detachment of being, experience, and consciousness is still being generally ignored.

Autism is also a disintegration, contraction, and detachment of the instincts as well. The instincts allow for the increase, advancement, extension, and differentiation of desire. Consciousness advances desire and consists of advanced instinct. The instincts involve the projection, integration, connection, and extension of feeling, energy, desire, emotion, and thought. (Desire consists of both intention and concern, thereby including interest as well.)

The disintegration, alteration, contraction/reduction/loss, and replacement of sensory experience, our instincts, and feeling threaten to disconnect and detach the self from what is natural and truly sustaining. Moreover, there is no true difference between what is foreign/unnatural and toxic. Toxins and artificially reconfigured sensory experience (including pollution, vaccines, processed foods, television, etc.) make the self increasingly unconscious (and reactive) in various and unpredictable ways. We are becoming more inanimate.

The body is invisible and visible.
The vaccines are biologically active as disorder/damage/poisoning/toxicity to the self/bodily system. Are thoughts, feelings, and emotions visible?

Autism is a disintegration, contraction, and detachment of being, experience, consciousness, emotion, feeling, and thought. The vaccines are making us progressively unconscious and reactive in various and unpredictable ways.

I am on the other end of the Spectrum, having AS. I can tell you that I am certainly not detached in any way, shape or form! I have emotions, can connect to the world around me, and to others. The way I go about it is different, and sometimes difficult, but that does not make me detached!

My emotions do not show themselves naturally, either in my vocal tone, body language, or facial expressions. That does not mean that I do not have them. And believe me I am connected to them!! I have to think about how to display the emotions I am feeling inside to the outside world, instead of this occuring naturally.

I can and do seperate my emotion from logic. And I will act on logic rather than emotion, because this is simply the better course. I see acting on pure emotion as irrational and something that could be dangerous. This does not mean I am detached from my emotions or the situaction. It means my actions are not dictated by them, but by my logic.

This may make me appear detached from the outside world. And to be sure, I sometimes will leave my features blank on purpose so that my emotions are not readable. But this does not make me detached.

I am not detached from the world around me. I feel they are detached from me! I reach out, they forever judge me on a criteria that is not fair and does not take into consideration my unique kind of disability. Just because I will never fit into the nuerotypical mode does not mean that I am disconected from them, or the world around me.

Remember folks, things are not always what they appear, and appearences can be quite decieving.